With the fruit bats and Egyptian warriors in pursuit, Carter, Sadie, and Bast run to the Louvre, where Sadie uses an obelisk to open a portal to America with Isis’s aid. Carter goes through, but the guards catch up before Sadie and Bast can follow. They warn Sadie not to trust Bast because “she abandoned her post” (237). With Bast looking grief-stricken and Carter already through the portal, Sadie ignores the guards and follows her brother.

Sadie, Carter, and Bast arrive at the top of the Washington Monument—the largest obelisk in North America. Opening two portals in one day has left Sadie drained, and the group hunkers down for the night. Carter shows them the book he found in Desjardins’s library, but none of them can read it. Bast conjures a picnic dinner and explains what the guard meant by abandoning her post. When she was imprisoned, she was with a creature of chaos, and her “post” was battling that monster forever. Before Sadie can ask anything else, Bast leaves to scout the area for threats.

Sadie and Carter are sure Bast isn’t telling them something. They try to work out what their parents might have been really trying to do the night their mom died, but neither comes up with anything.